1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a die having eight planar surfaces and six convex surfaces. The eight planar surfaces can be marked with various symbols, and preferably include the card values and color symbols or suits associated with a deck of cards. The die can be utilized alone, or in combination with other dice, for parlor games. With a set of dice having eight planar surfaces marked with all or a portion of the card values and suits of a deck of fifty-two cards, it is possible to obtain various card combinations. In this regard, a die having eight planar faces according to the present invention can be packaged in sets of, for example, two, three, four, five, six or seven dice. Such sets of dice render it possible to play games wherein by a simple roll of the dice at least some, and preferably all poker hands may be obtained. For example, it is possible to obtain a combination of consecutive card values in the same suit, conventionally known as a straight flush.
2. Description of Pertinent Materials and Background
Dice are currently utilized in parlor games to randomly select a mark. A widely used die has six faces marked with one to six points and serves to obtain marks for a plethora of parlor games throughout the world. Dice are also known having six faces marked with card values including the ace, king, queen, jack, ten, and nine. These dice are especially utilized to play ace poker games, wherein five identical dice are used to obtain various combinations of card values.
In addition to the dice described above, there are also known dice having four and eight faces. Dice having eight faces are formed substantially of two pyramids having a common square base and faces in the form of equilateral triangles attached at their base. The faces of such dice are usually numbered from one to eight. Dice also exist having ten faces, twelve faces, and twenty faces. Unlike the dice having six faces which provide a guarantee of a certain level of credible randomness, the known dice having four, eight, and ten faces have angles between the faces and points which are too pronounced to achieve a sufficient roll in a manner so as to neutralize characteristics of the throw.